Stephen Crabb: I am disappointed by the complacency shown by the Secretary of State and his parliamentary Under-Secretary this morning. Are they not aware that unemployment across Wales has been increasing for 10 consecutive months, in some constituencies by up to 35 per cent.? With Welsh manufacturing output slumping in the past year by 6 per cent. and the Chancellor's public sector jobs splurge coming to an end, is there not a real danger that much of the excellent progress that we have made on the Welsh job front since 1992 is now starting to unwind?

Peter Hain: The Ministry of Defence has made it clear that it fully expects to recover its investment in the Red Dragon project by April 2007. That has left Wales with a highly marketable first-class facility to attract new investors. Up to 300 jobs are coming in 18 months, and St. Athan is well placed to bid as an excellent location for the defence training review jobs. That is a very strong bid which I fully support, and the opportunities at St. Athan will make it an excellent site for that project.

Chris Bryant: Would my hon. Friend buy a car that broke down every 2,500 miles? Trains on average in the Rhondda break down every 2,367 miles, largely because Arriva Trains never bothers to maintain the trains properly. Will my hon. Friend call Arriva Trains senior management into his office, give them a proper grilling and point out to them that third-class rail service was meant to have been abolished 43 years ago, not perpetuated in the Rhondda?

Norman Lamb: Yes. A very limited benefit will apply to only the very smallest employers. As my hon. Friend rightly says, many employers in the category caught by the new clause, who would benefit from the right to transfer responsibility back to the Government, will get no assistance in covering NI contributions and only 92 per cent. of statutory maternity pay back from the Government. If the Government are not prepared to go down the route that we suggest, they should consider whether they are prepared to increase the percentage repaid to employers.
	I am not sure whether HMRC's assessment adequately takes into account the cash-flow benefits for small employers in not having to make the payment in the first place. At the moment, every week, they must pay the woman on maternity leave or the man on paternity leave. If the responsibility were transferred to the Government, those payments would not come from small employers' systems at all. I am not sure of the repayment time at the moment—it would be helpful if the Minister could confirm it—but a cash-flow burden is imposed on businesses for the period that the money is out of their systems. Those businesses would be assisted if the Government took over responsibility for making the payments. I do not think that the assessment made by HMRC adequately takes that into account.
	HMRC's calculation takes account of the fact that many employers have complex remuneration packages because of pension contributions and so on. It says that all those burdens remain with the employer, but the remuneration packages of most small employers are much simpler than those of large employers, so the burdens would not be relevant if they were not part of the remuneration package in the first place.
	The Government's response is to try to solve everything by handing out a CD-ROM to employers—that is their get-out-of-jail card. They will also provide employers with a "teach yourself" package that will give them everything that they need to administer the system. However, the Government do not understand that the voluminous guidance that comes out of the Department of Trade and Industry in itself puts an administrative and regulatory burden on employers. In my previous life as an employment lawyer, I was constantly aware that employers were swamped by "teach yourself" guides and guidance notes on how to interpret regulations, such as the working time directive. Small companies are struggling to maintain their businesses, let alone do all the administration that goes with that, but the Government want to give them yet another "teach yourself" guide and burden. The proposal is not the panacea that the Government think that it is.
	I have outlined the thinking behind new clause 1. I realise that the Government have stated an intent to help businesses, especially small businesses, to deal with the new burdens on them. However, we have seen little action to back it up that intent. The Minister looks distressed by what I say, but it is the truth. Little has been done through the Bill to ease the burden on employers. In a nutshell, the assessment by HMRC understates the costs for employers. If we had the opt-in system about which we are talking, the cost to the Government would be significantly less. I know that the Minister is a reasonable man, so I hope that he will accept our arguments and that there will be no need to divide the House.

John Redwood: I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) and other hon. Members who support new clause 1. I am non-executive director of three companies cited in the register, but I am, of course, not speaking on their behalf or at their request.
	The Minister should ask himself two important questions before he asks the House to reject the new clause. The first question has partially emerged in the debate: what has become of the Prime Minister's policy, which is very good, that a regulation should be struck off for every new one that is imposed? No equal and opposite regulation is being struck off to balance today's sizeable one.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) asked my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest which regulation we would strike off. If he had been present in the House just before Christmas, he would have witnessed my leading for the Opposition from the Front Bench and setting out a wide-ranging deregulatory policy, which includes 63 specific ideas for the Government, and we have sent those ideas to different branches of the Government in the hope that some of them will be incorporated. Indeed, a Minister suggested the beginnings of one such idea in an overnight briefing to the papers, and perhaps the House will have the courtesy of being told whether it is true—it would be nice to feel that as a Member of Parliament, one is sometimes the first to hear such things rather than the last.
	We have identified plenty of regulations that could be struck off to add to the good workings of the British economy and reduce the burden on people and businesses, but they fall outside the scope of the debate on new clause 1. One sometimes wonders whether Ministers belong to the same Government as the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has made some extremely good speeches, such as his speech on deregulation, but the opposite of what he has said is happening day by day. As has been said, this provision is a good example of something happening in exactly the opposite direction from that set out by the Prime Minister and without the action to balance the situation enjoined by him. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest has made it clear that she supports the proposal, but on the condition that offsetting deregulation, which has not been introduced, takes place.
	The second question about which the Minister should think more carefully concerns cost. It is unsatisfactory that we should debate such an important measure with no credible figures from the Government, and I find it unbelievable that we are discussing a cost of only £400,000. If we examine the Government's assessment of the impact of the legislation, the gross figure for the regulatory impact of the legislation is cited as £575 million a year, if one adds up the highest estimates. The Government say that there could be offsets of £209 million a year against that figure—£196 million of those offsets are extremely optimistic, but let us give them to the Government. In short, according to the Government's own regulatory impact assessment, we are discussing about £400 million of extra cost.
	We are being asked to believe that the important part of the cost imposed on small businesses will amount to some £400,000, so it is not worth exempting small business—although it will cost the Government a mind-blowing £39 million to deal with the problem, it will save small businesses only £400,000. I know that anything that this Government run is considerably less well run than it would be in the private sector—productivity is a far bigger problem in the public sector than the private sector—but it is difficult to believe that they are so monumentally incompetent that they would spend £39 million to save £400,000 a year. I put it to the Minister that the truth of the position is that a bigger element of the £575 million that the Government have identified will be attributable to small business, and that it would therefore be a useful saving for small businesses in implementing the measure to transfer the work burden from them to the Treasury in cases in which small businesses would like that to happen.
	I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and other hon. Friends have in mind an opt-in system, which means that if by any chance the Government are right and there are no real costs to the measure for small businesses, those small businesses would be happy to administer the measure themselves and the Treasury would not be troubled. However, I suspect that the measure will involve substantial cost. It would be a very good idea for small businesses for the Treasury to do the work, if we discover that the cost estimates are far from adequate.
	It is fundamental that a Government who claim to believe in deregulation should set out accurate and detailed costings that have weight and carry credibility both with this House and with those outside who are interested in such matters. This is yet another example in which the regulatory impact assessment is on the whole vague and incredible. Where the regulatory impact assessment is specific, it comes up with some very large numbers, which the Government have passed by and cannot explain. We should not ignore the £390 million cost which the regulatory impact assessment states that the Government must pay, which means that the total cost of the measure taking the Government cost and the net private sector cost in the RIA will be around £800 million.
	The Government must remember that they have no money of their own. They have only the money that they collect from us as individuals and from the business community, so the £390 million of so-called Government cost is also a cost on business and individuals who work for those businesses, just as much as the £400 million cost is a direct charge on the private sector.
	I urge the Minister to think again. If he will not, and if he remains inclined to tell hon. Members that he does not want new clause 1, will he please explain when we will have proper figures for the costs and a proper off-set under the terms of the Prime Minister's policy?

Norman Lamb: I entirely agree. There must be an element of independence in the RIA process, for, without it, the figures simply cannot be robust enough. There should also be a reassessment once the regulation has been introduced. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that that will happen. He said that he would keep the matter under review in response to an intervention, and, a year on, we ought to establish what the actual costs have been.
	A number of factors have led us to conclude that this assessment is wrong. I heard what the Minister said at the end of his speech, but I still believe that, for many employers statutory, maternity and paternity pay has cash flow implications which could be avoided if the payments were made directly by the Government. We should also bear in mind the time taken away from wealth generation. The time spent on completing a manual declaration could be spent on making money—generating wealth for the business. I bet that the assessors did not calculate that loss adequately.

New Clause 3
	 — 
	Review of additional paternity and pay

Sadiq Khan: I sympathise with what the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) said. It is clear that she has been given a difficult brief by the men in green suits and pastiche ties who run her party, even if they are better, I suggest, than the grey men in grey suits who used to run it. They clearly need to be seen to be close to business, but the front page of today's Financial Times and new clause 2, which is not being taken today, rather give the game away.
	The implication of what the hon. Lady said is that the Secretary of State and the Minister do not spend a considerable amount of their time talking to businesses and listening to what small businesses and employers have to say. That is, of course, absurd. The idea that they speak to business or small employer only once a year and that only once a year would they relay those people's views back to the House is absurd. This back-door sunset clause—for that is what the new clause is—attacks the paternity leave that we introduced for birth and adoption. It attacks, indirectly, additional statutory paternity pay for birth and adoption, and it attacks additional statutory maternity pay and the rates of pay and period of leave that we are introducing. The platitudes of the hon. Member for Epping Forest on the wonders of paternity pay and her statements that the Government have, of course, got their policy right in principle, are also absurd. There is no sincerity in them.

Eleanor Laing: It depends how one interprets those words. [Laughter.] My interpretation is that my right hon. Friend agrees with all that I have said during the passage of this Bill and, I hope, with all that I am about to say on Third Reading.
	As I said on Report, it is idealistic to suggest that a work force will be happy and able to do their jobs to the very best of their ability, if they do not have to worry about what is going on in the rest of their lives while they are at work. If, however, a person goes to work knowing that they can leave work if someone for whom they are caring at home—a small child, someone who is ill or an elderly relative—needs them, then they will work better and form part of a better work force.
	Employers will be happier with how their employees are functioning, if their employees can get on with their work without anxiety about trying to balance work and family life—that said, mothers and fathers who go to work will always have some anxiety about their children or elderly relatives, so perhaps I am being idealistic. However, I am trying to convince the Secretary of State that I entirely agree with his remarks about the importance of flexibility and the work-life balance, which make for a better, more efficient work force.
	If the Bill works as intended, it will be good for not only society, but the economy—the economic imperative.

Eleanor Laing: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will of course adhere to your ruling.
	I do not wish to digress or to take up the House's time unnecessarily, but to convince the Secretary of State that I agree with most of what he said. We are thoroughly behind the Bill and its intentions, but I remain concerned about the burdens on small businesses and about the cost to the taxpayer and the business community, large and small, of implementing some of the regulations. I also remain concerned that, if employers do not have confidence in the Bill and feel that they are being forced into a situation that they do not want, the measure might backfire. However, I hope that it does not because in our debates in many forums in the past few months, we have all been trying to achieve equality in society and in the work force. That is not only desirable but necessary.
	Women have to do two jobs and it is not only desirable but economically necessary that they should do that because we need them in the work force. We need women who are currently in the work force to remain there and it is wrong that a woman who has a child and wants to return to work should sometimes be required to go back at a lower level than that that she had reached before she gave birth. That is wrong socially and because it is unfair, but it is also wrong because of its effect on the economy.
	I shall repeat the statistic that the Minister for Women and Equality first mentioned. If all the women in our work force worked at the height of their capability instead of doing jobs for which they are over-qualified in order to do part-time work to look after their families, annual GDP would increase by 3 per cent., which is equal to our annual trade with Germany. I have often used that statistic and people have argued against me on many occasions. I cite the Minister as the person who first mentioned it and I therefore hope for my sake as well as hers that it is accurate. However, I should like us to prove its accuracy by enabling the women to whom we refer to work to the limit of their abilities instead of being undervalued because they happen to be mothers as well as important people in the work force.
	If we require women to do two jobs, we must also require families to support the women and the children involved. For that reason, it is necessary for fathers as well as mothers to have rights.
	If a family is to work the way that it should, flexibility is required to enable people to look after their elderly parents, their sick relatives and their small children when necessary. Flexibility does not mean not working properly. If the employer and the employee exercise it responsibly, it works in everybody's best interests. That is why the Bill is so important. I am pleased to be able to support the Bill. It is a big step forward towards a family friendly workplace. If it works properly—I sincerely hope that it will—it will be a huge boost not only to our society but to our economy.
	As the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) said, it is a pity that we have not seen the regulations. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State and the Minister for Employment Relations, Consumers and Fair Markets promised us that we would see them. There was an understanding that we would have them in Committee. The Minister expressed a further hope in Committee that we would have them before Third Reading. We are nearing the conclusion of proceedings on the Bill and we have still not seen the regulations, so I fear that it may be the duty of our colleagues in another place to pursue the argument about their introduction. In Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe) said that the Secretary of State was a "hard taskmaster" in promising that the regulations would be published soon. That was several weeks ago, and we still have not seen the regulations, which is disappointing. Our consideration of the Bill would have been better informed if the regulations had been published. I cannot make that point strongly enough.

Eleanor Laing: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his frankness and for his apology. The Minister said in Committee that he is a hard taskmaster, and I am sure that some people are quaking in their boots and will not dare to ask for any flexible working time until those regulations appear. We look forward eventually to seeing the regulations and I am pleased to accept his assurance that all the regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure so that we will have an opportunity in Statutory Instrument Committee to consider them in detail. I look forward to being able to do so as soon as possible.
	I want the Bill to work. I am concerned that some parts will not work if the regulations are too tight, if the burdens on small businesses are too great or if the red tape involved in administering the Bill's good intentions cause the legislation, once it comes into force, not to work as the Government intend. The Government have good intentions, and we have good intentions in supporting the Bill, but I do not want anything to happen that would undermine the position of small businesses, because that would make the whole body of legislation on maternity and paternity pay and family-friendly working arrangements backfire. We therefore want to examine the regulations in great detail to make sure that the Bill will work as intended.
	I leave my reservations on the record and reserve the right to discuss the matter again. It is important that employers and employees alike have confidence in the way in which the regulations will work. If we all want them to work, it is important that we have further discussions about exactly how they will work and that we get the correct balance between the rights of business, particularly small business, and the rights of employees.
	Having said all that, I conclude by thanking all the Ministers who have been involved in the passage of this legislation for the courteous and reasonable way in which they have dealt with it. In finalising the Bill, they have taken many concessions and points into consideration. I also thank Liberal Democrat and Scottish Nationalist Members who have contributed so much to the Bill. An unbelievable degree of consensus has been found between all the parties—particularly between the Opposition parties, which worries me considerably—which has meant that our deliberations have been pleasant and constructive throughout the passage of the Bill.I also thank my hon. Friends who served on the Committee and who supported the Bill today, and all the officials who have worked hard behind the scenes.
	Strangely enough, we appear to be doing well in our use of time this afternoon. As the Bill is intended to be family-friendly, it is wonderful that our deliberation might finish early. I was upset at the thought that I would not be able to attend the first parents meeting at my four-and-a-half-year-old son's school, where he started only last Thursday. I was called before the headmistress this morning to apologise, as I was not going to be able to attend. If it turns out that we finish early—

Norman Lamb: Absolutely. I led the campaign for compensation for women who were discharged from the armed forces when they got pregnant. Some 5,000 women were discharged simply because they became pregnant, and we should note the craziness of the resulting lost investment in their training. One of the biggest critics of the campaign to get compensation was a Conservative MP, so if the Conservative party has now moved on that is a good thing from everybody's point of view.
	I have a number of specific points to make about the Bill, but I shall be as brief as I can because I want to make sure that the historic opportunity for parish councils to have their moment in the spotlight in the forthcoming Adjournment debate is not lost. Never has so much time been able to be devoted to the interests of parish councils. First, we must all accept that the Bill does impose new burdens on employers. By and large, employers' organisations recognise that the rights being introduced or extended are good things in themselves and they are prepared to go along with them, but they continue to express concern about the impact on small businesses in particular.
	On report—the Secretary of State was not present for that debate—the Government rejected a new clause to introduce a right for small employers to transfer responsibility for the payment of statutory maternity and paternity pay to the Government. We put it to the Minister present for that debate that the Government ought to consider adjusting the percentage payback to employers when recompensing them for the maternity or paternity pay paid out. Currently, 92 per cent. is paid back to all employers who make national insurance contributions in excess of £45,000 a year; for those below that level, the figure is 104.5 per cent. However, even for smaller employers, such repayments do not reflect the administrative burden. In an intervention on my speech on the new clause, the Minister seemed to accept the case for compensating for the cost of the administrative burden. Given that the Government rejected the new clause, they ought to consider making an adjustment to assist employers. If they are unable to help them through the direct payment method, that is another way in which they could help, and they ought to take it seriously.
	My second point concerns the regulations facilitating the increase in paid leave. The Bill provides potentially sweeping powers for the Secretary of State to increase paid leave. The understanding is that it will be increased by another eight days, to reflect the fact that there are still many employees who do not get paid for bank holidays and other public holidays. We very much support such an extension. The CBI made the case for phasing in that additional right.

Parish Councils (Planning)

Andrew George: My hon. Friend asks whether there is an answer to the problem of the democratic deficit. Often, insufficient candidates put themselves forward to fulfil the job of parish councils. That happens in a very few cases in my constituency in west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The answer lies in the title of my hon. Friend's debate—the implication that parish councils and parish councillors have little or no power. If they are given more power—the communes in France have power—we will find that people turn out for elections and that there is competition for the seats available. That is the case at the commune level in France, and no doubt the same would happen with parish councils throughout this country. Surely the answer is that we need to devolve some appropriate powers to parish councils.

Peter Bone: The hon. Gentleman has secured an important debate. The number of Members in the Chamber for an Adjournment debate shows how successful he has been and how important it is.
	This morning, I had a phone call from Councillor Stephen North, who is the leader of Rushden town council in my constituency. It is the second biggest town in the constituency, with a population of 32,000. He firmly believes that if more planning powers were given to the town council it would be more efficient and more accountable.

Andrew George: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on securing the debate and on making a strong and powerful case for improving, increasing and clarifying in some cases the role of parish councils in respect of planning. Wider than that, planning matters clearly affect many other decisions and issues about which parish councils are rightly concerned on behalf of their local communities.
	The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who is no longer in his place, also made a very strong contribution, by emphasising both his own experience and his passionate interest in the subject. Similarly, the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) emphasised the importance of parishing those parts of the country that are not yet parished. Of course, with that comes the twin-pronged problem of parishing an area and then having to admit to the councils in that area that they have no powers and the fact that the councillors who end up serving on those councils and on higher-tier authorities are compromised as a result of becoming engaged in any of the more important issues that the parish councils consider, as was exposed in an intervention by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor).
	The issue that we are debating has not suddenly sprung up in recent years: an honourable tradition goes back before William Godwin, Kropotkin, Cobbett and, more latterly, Schumacher, all of whom emphasised the importance of giving communities a genuine say in the conduct of their affairs. In fact, that honourable tradition is exemplified by the way in which parish councils operate when they are at their best and by the way in which we as politicians want communities to have a genuine influence on the conduct of their affairs in taking that issue further forward.
	The hon. Member for Stroud has now returned to the Chamber. He referred to Stephen Wright, the director of Gloucestershire rural community council and a good friend of mine. I think that Stephen Wright stole the words to which the hon. Gentleman referred from me. Many years ago, I went to Action with Communities in Rural England, and I often said that parish councils were the highest tier of government because they were closest to the people, and thus in a better position to reflect people's interests. I am sure that I nicked the idea from someone else—probably Stephen Wright—but we can argue about that.
	At their worst, parish councils are open forums for settling local scores and pursuing narrow parochial interests and do not help the greater good of the local community. However, when they operate at their best, as they do on most occasions throughout my constituency—this can be said of local authorities of different levels—they represent the best interests of their communities extremely well. Such councils are in the best position to take decisions.
	The Government have to make important decisions both on the unfinished business of devolution and on the related matter of the role of parish councils. If the Government genuinely think that devolution is a process of letting go instead of holding on for dear life and realise that it is appropriate to devolve a number of powers further down the authority spectrum, they must recognise that they can negotiate a business case for parish councils taking on a range of decision-making responsibilities.
	Such responsibilities might include planning. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome cited the example of Taunton Deane, as well as the situation in other districts and boroughs. That demonstrates that parish councils are in a good position to monitor situations—district councils are incapable of doing that. They would be in an especially good position to monitor the enforcement of conservation measures and whether all properties in a parish had appropriate planning permission before work was carried out on extensions, for example. Planning law is flouted to a great extent, so parish councils could take on the responsibility for addressing the problem from higher-tier authorities.
	I take on board my hon. Friend's point about risk. Parish councils could be at legal and financial risk if they took decisions on matters that another authority might delegate to them. It would be possible to make a business case for establishing a system through which parish councils would fully understand their legal and financial responsibilities when taking decisions. If the district council engaged in the process, it could supply parish councils with any appropriate professional assistance and expertise that was required. It is not beyond the wit of man or woman to create a system of delegation that would work. Parish councils are in a much stronger position than other authorities to discharge duties on a whole load of matters, including planning, environmental matters and waste management.

Andrew George: There are occasions when what the hon. Gentleman says is true. I shall come on in my final remarks to circumstances in which it is possible for formal structures to operate at a very local level. I shall refer to a part of my constituency that is not in Cornwall.
	I know that local planning issues, in particular, can be tremendously highly charged. No one should go into planning, particularly at officer level, if they have a persecution complex because they will be attacked from both sides on all occasions. The same is true of those on planning committees. I feel very strongly about planning matters, and at every general election, when I am asked whether I believe that capital punishment should be reintroduced, I say, "Absolutely not, except on two occasions: when people put plastic windows into old buildings and when people fail to pick up after their dog."
	Turning to circumstances in which it is appropriate to take decisions locally, I have a good example in my constituency, on the Isles of Scilly. The population is 2,000, considerably smaller than that of many parishes, but the council has more powers than a county, district and parish council rolled into one—it is also the water authority and the airport authority. There are many lessons to be learned from the Isles of Scilly, and if the Government are thinking seriously, as I hope they are, about devolving powers to parish level, they should look at that exemplar. On the Isles of Scilly, all planning decisions, as far as the Government and the new, nonsensical regional assembly allow, are taken at parish level, and as a result there are very few occasions on which local people end up gunning each other down in the high street. Planning matters are still highly charged, but the council uses professional planning advice, which often comes from the mainland. It is wise not to have all local authority officers living in the community in question.
	I hope that the Minister takes that on board when he reflects on what he has heard today and on whether he can influence his Department's policy and look again at the possibility of devolving power to parish councils.

Phil Woolas: My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is increasingly recognised that planners are under pressure not just to be professional, but to be communicators.
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome highlighted the opportunities that e-government and electronic communications offer to upper-tier authorities, whether district or county, to embed the parish councils as partners in service delivery and in consultation and information. Those opportunities are significant. Duplication would be avoided, and the public often do not know which level services are delivered from.
	The hon. Gentleman's point about the attitude to parish councils is important. They should be embraced and their views taken seriously. Of course there are good and bad parish councils, and sometimes very parochial issues are raised, but that is outweighed by neighbourhood empowerment and the ability to achieve a sustainable community. People have the right to expect that their views will be taken into consideration and listened to. The alienation of the public from politics and policy decisions could be helped by strong and effective parish councils.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) obviously speaks with great knowledge about these matters. He wants unitary authorities. He emphasised the point about the third tier and I agree. I am grateful to him for praising the Government and pointing out to the House that we have funded parish councils and created the quality parish council scheme, which has devolved power. We want to see more of that and an acknowledgment that money has gone into the development of the village plans. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that to the attention of the House, and for his point about the university of Gloucestershire, which I was not aware of. I shall look further into it, as it is important.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), who is also very knowledgeable about these matters, spoke about the problem of part-parished areas. That is an important part of our White Paper debate and how we move forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said that we should not impose parishes on areas that did not want them, but the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire is being taken into consideration in the White Paper.
	The hon. Member for Kettering is right—he has raised matters about all four levels of government. As far as I know, I am not due to attend a debate about the European Union in the near future, but perhaps he wants to complete his quintet with that. I congratulate him on the points that he made. I am jealous that he can chair a forum made up of 22 parishes, which must be a useful tool in representing his constituency. He raised the case of Barton Seagrave and Burton Latimer and mentioned the campaign of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchelson, and I acknowledge his point about the position of the parish in big planning applications. In such situations, the onus is on authorities and Governments to listen more to the views of parishes than they would otherwise do.
	The hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) acknowledged that there are good and bad parish councils. The detractors of parishes sometimes pick up on petty and parochial points, which is not a rational way to view parishes, and we must take into account that the vast majority of activity is good. He also raised an interesting point, which I shall take away, that a parish should be a planning authority. He also suggested that the parish has a role in enforcing planning decisions and planning law, which is a powerful point. He wants other powers for parishes and cited the example of the Isles of Scilly, which are in my mind at the moment because they are recipients of the formula grant in the local government settlement—they will receive £67,375. Funding is an important issue in moving more powers downwards, although I know that that is not the end of the argument.
	Turning to the policy questions, in addition to the statutory time limits of eight and 13 weeks for determining minor and major planning applications respectively, the Government have set performance targets for district and borough councils to encourage efficiency in their planning sector. We believe that timeliness in delivering planning decisions is an important part of a quality planning service, that applicants have a right to expect a measure of certainty in the handling of their development proposals and that quality should not be sacrificed to speed or quantity.
	As part of the best value regime, local planning authorities have the targets of dealing with 60 per cent. of major, applications within 13 weeks, 65 per cent. of minor applications within eight weeks and 80 per cent. of other applications within eight weeks. Comparative results of local authority performance across England are published on the internet in the form of a checklist. As we shall see, however, there is no longer a performance target for the delegation of decisions to planning officers, which has been restricted as part of our general policy. We take the accusation that targets have perverse effects seriously.
	Let me say a little more about decision making and the planning system in general. Prompt decision making with no loss of quality is only one element of the planning services we want local authorities to provide. Communities deserve openness and transparency of process and of decision making. The latter must go further than simple compliance with the consultation arrangements laid down in the law. Improving the planning system is also predicated on increased public participation in the process, whether by individuals, by groups or by bodies such as the parish council.
	One of the main aims of our recent planning reforms has been to increase the involvement of local people in the planning decisions that affect their lives. Local planning authorities are now required to publish a statement of community involvement, setting out how local people and organisations will be not only engaged in the preparation and revision of local development documents, but consulted on the more significant planning applications. There is also independent examination of the statement of community involvement. A local planning authority must comply with its statement.
	We brought in this procedure to help to ensure that district and borough councils feel obliged to make greater and more effective efforts to engage the local community directly and to exploit the knowledge of their area which local people and, as all hon. Members have said, their parish councils can proffer to assist the planning system.

Phil Woolas: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will put the matter on the record for the benefit of his constituents and others who might be interested.
	Under the new system, supplementary planning documents have statutory status, although they are not part of the statutory development plan. We are still in a transitional phase. To ensure that authorities can continue to have supplementary material in place, PPS 12 states that, as part of the transitional arrangements, supplementary planning guidance can continue to supplement "saved" development plan policies and will remain while "saved" policies are in place. However, supplementary planning guidance will need to be replaced by supplementary planning documents when new development plan documents are adopted replacing "saved" policies. I ask the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome to bear with me, as it does make sense.
	Supplementary planning documents form part of the new local development framework. They have greater weight than the old supplementary guidance because they have complied with the requirements for community involvement and sustainability appraisal and conform with the development plan policy. Therefore, more power is given to supplementary planning documents than under the old system.
	Parish plans can add value by expressing a greater level of detail than is possible in development plan documents. While parish plans may be adopted as a supplementary planning document, that is not to be seen as the norm. Technically, a supplementary planning document has to supplement a development plan document policy. Turning parish plans into supplementary planning documents is likely to be time-consuming. In South Somerset, for example, the small planning department is trying to prioritise housing delivery and regeneration, so there are tensions. Parish plans are in the nature of community planning, and only when requirements such as public involvement and sustainability appraisal have been met may the spatial planning components, possibly modified, be adoptable. That is the policy outline for the parish plan. I see that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome is frowning. If he wants to write to me to take up specific points, I will, of course, try to answer him.
	Parish planning is a tried and tested tool for strengthening local democracy and engaging citizens in how their local area and services are managed. During the past four years, nearly 3,000 parishes have been producing 1,250 parish plans, and when one bears in mind that many of those are in clusters, the extent of their geographical coverage is clear. From 2001 to 2005, parish plans were delivered and supported by the Countryside Agency, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has made available more than £1 million for parish plans this year, and will continue offering support for parish plans and parish councils from 2006 through the rural social and community programme. Rural community councils allocate grants for villages to produce a parish plan of up to £5,000. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome will be pleased to know that some parish plans have been adopted as supplementary planning documents, and can provide a valuable evidence base for decision makers.
	The benefits of the strategy do exist. I hope that I have been able to convince the House of the Government's genuine intention of involving parishes and parish councils in decision-making. I also hope that I have explained the balance of powers between planning authority and parish, and how we intend to proceed with the policy in the White Paper debate.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes to Seven o'clock.

CORRECTION

17 January 2006: in col. 725, at the end of Mr. Plaskitt's speech insert the following paragraph:
	"We need to find a solution to the agency's problems, because in many cases parents are just not facing up to their responsibilities to their children. Worse still, a significant number of parents actively avoid paying maintenance. Some go to extraordinary lengths to do so, leaving their jobs, constantly changing address or leaving the country as soon as the agency gets close. Whatever we do in the future, the fact remains that it is the overriding responsibility of non-resident parents to support their children financially. We need to revisit the fundamental questions of what we are trying to achieve and whether we have the right tools with which to do it. Where we do not have the right tools, or they are not in the right place, we need to put together a robust plan to fix the problem—and that is exactly what we are doing."